I've been wondering lately what most people think is better, Doom or Heretic. From a few videos I've seen, a lot of people think that Heretic is better for its superior level design and such. I believe this is true, and while it would make sense for Heretic to be better since it came out after and has naturally improved on faults that Doom used in the engine, I still want to get other people's opinion and see what they think.

Hexen has wonderful atmosphere and interesting levels, and Heretic also has good atmosphere, but for me gameplay-wise they don't compare to Doom (even though I don't value doom gameplay as highly as others). Heretic especially, everything is so weak in it. Weapons sound unsatisfying, enemies seem to take too long to kill, etc etc. It just feels like Raven just made random monsters and random weapons and scattered them semi-randomly without actually thinking what makes for interesting gameplay, thinking that just being able to shoot something that's potentially threatening is automatically fun. Level design-wise I can't really compare, I mean heretic and hexen seem more polished in that regard, and I'd say the levels are more atmospheric than Doom, but the gameplay aspect of it is just meh. Hexen I can't judge at all, because for me it's gameplay was always more about exploration than fighting, but Heretic is just dull to play.

I've always loved Heretic's garish color palette. It has this (for lack of a more precise term) radiant quality to it that reminds me of 70's and 80's fantasy camp, before everything became "majestic" and digitally painted. But Doom is definitely tops.

I never liked Hexen, atmospheric though it may be, the level design and pacing never did anything for me. I love older RPGs and adventure games, but in the Doom engine it always just struck me as somewhat depressing to play in spite of how technically impressive it was. However, I'm still intrigued by the idea of a more ambitious and open-ended Hexen PWAD.

Heretic is fantastic. All the weapons are a unique color and so is each artifact. The weapons are all slightly underpowered with the exception of the wand and dragon claw, which means you are nudged to use the artifacts as soon as you find them.

Hexen was quite good but felt like a slowed-down version of Heretic that focused on exploration instead of killing.

If you've seen the project I've been hosting then you know I am a Heretic (and HeXen) fan, but I if I had to pick one it would be Doom II. Why? Gameplay. Take note that I am not talking about the original Doom. If we were comparing Original Doom to Heretic or HeXen it would be a lot closer of a call. There are no hit scanners in Heretic/HeXen, there is also nothing that really compares to the arch-vile, which is often used in any Doom II map to really ramp the action into absurdity. The artifacts in Heretic/HeXen are cool, but I find I just horde them and only once I've died say 'hmmm, maybe should have used an artifact there.'

Flying in Heretic/HeXen is under-used. Perhaps there could've been an entire 'floating island' episode dedicated to flying. I am a fantasy nerd so I like any medieval fantasy theme. My favorite enemy from Heretic is the floating disciples, basically cacodemons with triple fireball.

In the end, while Heretic and HeXen offer a variety of textures, items, and monsters, Doom II has superior game play and balance, thus remains the obvious king of the doom engine games.

Heretic is too much like Doom with a mod pack.
Heretic plays better when you think about how to use the artifacts.
It does not suffice when you just want to pound bad guys.
The maps in Heretic could have been much better.
The designers expected too much from the engine modifications and did not put enough time into the maps. The Heretic maps could have been much better if they had gone through a few revisions.

For example, first map of shareware. Nice room with pillars, a wharf, and then what: you can step off the wharf and walk on the water.
And the wharf and water lead nowhere, it is just plopped down into the map.
After that it looks like a typical doom level.
Most of the Heretic maps are like that, a little promise of something new and better and then disappointment when they don't follow through with the theme.

Well, the hability to carry items was a very good addition, and the tome of power is great, but in the end I still like doom better. Hexen puzzle-filled hubs were an unecessary nightmare on an otherwise aslo good game.

I'd say Doom is the best out of the three, with Heretic close behind it. Doom just feels like a much smoother game than Heretic. I don't have much love for Hexen, mostly thanks to it's abundance of puzzles. That's not a bad thing, it's just not something I enjoy in a shooter. When I'm spending more time wondering "okay, where did I miss a switch?" than I do shooting (or punching, cause the fighter is awesome) things, than it's not my cup of tea.

Sometimes a boot up Heretic, forgetting that it's basically Doom with everything that made Doom cool removed. God those weapons suck, and bad weapons in a FPS? Well hey, we know what that S stands for right?
Hexen has some really nice atmosphere and more then a few neat ideas but is let down by annoying puzzles. Who could forget the ever helpful: "A door has opened somewhere" Sometimes I lament the presents of quest arrows in modern games, but then I remember what games used to be like. Yeah. I don't miss that.

DOOM was the first, is the simplest, and always my favorite. DOOM II is just an expansion for DOOM, not another new game. I don't like it's levels as much as the original though, and some of the monsters can be annoying. It depends on how they're used. Example: if someone puts chaingunners in high or low places, where you can barely see them and/or somewhere that confuses the engine's autoaim. I guess that these days it's acceptable to have that kind of level design for maps meant to be played in ports with mouselook, but anything designed for vanilla shouldn't be like that. It's simply no fun to try and take out some chaingunner nest and end up wasting your ammo while they quickly destroy you as your rockets hit the walls far below. They really should have adjusted the autoaim code, or added the look up/down stuff (like in Heretic) when they added those monsters. So in the end, DOOM II doesn't feel as cohesive and well-balanced as the original, but rather just a bolted-on bunch of stuff. For those reasons, I would rate Heretic somewhere between DOOM and DOOM II. Hexen is far, far behind all them though, since I get bored wandering around empty maps while fighting the same monsters that keep spawning. And I haven't played much of Strife yet, but the RPG aspects and NPC interraction from that game seem like they should have been in Hexen also (along with the different possible endings).

Both franchises have very interesting atmosphere but the overall feel of the games is very different. I especially like how Heretic/HeXen have this really oppressive and hopeless dark fantasy atmosphere. The music adds up a lot to this as well, it's so peculiar yet so perfect. The resources are very potent when it comes to making maps. E1M7 from HYMN is just spectacular.

Although I am really fond of Heretic/HeXen, sometimes I wish they were more open-world with NPCs and dungeons...kinda like the early Elder Scrolls games...in fact I often wonder why Bethesda didn't use the Doom engine to make the first TES games, as they were really slow.

I think Heretic is pretty cool. The weapons could have been better, now some of them are a bit too similar: Wand, Dragon Claw, Hell Staff and Mace... they're basically the same weapon. The tomed attacks were better, but I never use them, because they make the game too easy.

The levels were nice and looked more consistently themed than in Doom, but there could have been some more textures. It is 5 episodes...

Hexen has some crappy weapons and some good ones. The 4th weapons I probably used only a few times on the bosses. Each character had like 2 useful weapons.

The Mage only needs his Magic Wand, it's a rapid fire railgun with unlimited ammo, why use anything else. He should wipe his ass on the Frozen Shards scroll and then leave the scroll there for the next Mage to find.

The Cleric could have taken some fisting lessons from the Fighter.. what exactly he is trying to do with the Mace.. tickle? Just leave the Mace and wrap the Ass Shards scroll around the handle for the next Cleric to find.

The Fighter can Fist ass as good as he can create them with the Axe. The Hammer was cool too. Just ducttape the Sword into the Ass Shard Mace and leave it for the next Fighter to find.

Then thousands of years later an Archeologist finds the Ass Shard Mace Sword and says this belongs to the museum, but is taken to Versailles instead! But then the Nazis steal it! But then William "B.J." Blazkowicz is sent on a mission to recapture it!

Then the Martians capture it and reshape it into a cube with glowing lights and a talking face. Then Betruger takes it to Hell and taunts Doomguy to find it. Finally Doomguy finds it and shoots Ass Shard Mace Swords into the demons.

Then one of these Shards go through time and space and some elven blacksmith finds it and builds a Mace that fires Big Metal Balls. Then some another blacksmith finds one of these Big Metal Balls and builds a Mace for a young Parias, a promising student on a course to become a Cleric.

Doom all the way. Heretic can be a fun diversion at times, but the flow is nowhere near as smooth.

Hexen... well I don't think using a FPS engine for a exploration/puzzle-heavy game like this was the brightest idea, in particular when it was an engine that was known for being the definition of fast-paced, action-oriented gameplay.

Strife I never really got into. It was alright I guess, and showed what could still be done with a basic engine like Doom's, but again I don't really think it was necessarily the best engine to use for the task.

BaronOfStuff said:
Hexen... well I don't think using a FPS engine for a exploration/puzzle-heavy game like this was the brightest idea, in particular when it was an engine that was known for being the definition of fast-paced, action-oriented gameplay.

Different strokes for different folks (who could've imagined?): I f-kin love the concept. I always liked old pixely rpgs of the Might and Magic series (particularly 6-8), and hexen reminds me way too much of them, only more action-oriented and without all the RPG stuff. Basically it's like one really long dungeon. I couldn't care less for the fact that we get very few weapons, or very few monster types, I was enjoying the atmosphere way too much. And the exploration aspect was fun for me, too. Honestly I prefer exploration gameplay with some token fighting to keep things not completely safe to the non-stop combat from map start to map finish that Doom usually has - the latter actually bores me much faster.

I just can't take the fighter class. I refuse to play as a man who, when the realm is threatened, decides to go into battle in his underpants without taking any weapons. Hey, tough guy! now is not the time to be showing off! If your that bad ass with just your fists, imagine how much more damage you could do with pretty much ANY weapon.

DooM_RO said:
Although I am really fond of Heretic/HeXen, sometimes I wish they were more open-world with NPCs and dungeons...kinda like the early Elder Scrolls games...in fact I often wonder why Bethesda didn't use the Doom engine to make the first TES games, as they were really slow.

Daggerfall's engine was much more powerful than Doom's, which is why it required a much more powerful computer. True 3D rendering (even if it used sprites for monsters and NPCs), dynamic light, heightmapped exteriors, day/night cycle, dynamic weather, etc. There's no way the Doom engine could have allowed a tenth of what the Xngine did. Even today, you couldn't recreate Daggerfall in any sort of advanced Doom port.

hex11 said:
The other two seem pretty wimpy at the start. Maybe they get more powerful later, but I also just stick with the fighter class every time...

And I was disappointed Strife only has one character class. There is a good game in some alternate universe that has features of both Hexen and Strife...

Actually it exists in this universe but isn't finished yet. It's rf's Heretic project, which extensively uses both Hexen and Strife features. Although, come to think of it, it does only still have one player class :P

I can't really say Heretic or Hexen are worse, because I haven't played either of them. I've only watched some Youtube videos and can legitimately say some music from Heretic is highly enjoyable.

But they both use freelook and that kind of puts me off. I'm not going to get used to it, I'm afraid I'm too set in my ways. That's not to say I never play Quake with freelook, but I don't play it seriously.

You can play both without any problems without using freelook (I've played keyboard only for years). In vanilla the freelook pitch limits were fairly low as well any way, so I don't think it even provided much of an advantage.